“I talked to someone about climate change, and they told me: ‘Sooner or later we’ll invent a machine that can capture carbon from the atmosphere in an efficient way.’
“I told them it already exists, and it’s called a tree.”
This meme (with appropriately green leafy visual) has been circulating in eco groups for awhile now. I really like it.
That said: Trees, amazing as they are, cannot do the job alone. We also have to rehydrate landscapes; restore the soil-food web (which, when healthy, sequesters even more carbon than trees do); and maintain wild open spaces where animals can roam (as indigenous cultures have done for millennia).
We must feed people in a sustainable way, save wildlife from extinction, restore normal rainfall, replenish groundwater, bring back insect populations. Human technology may be able to help, but Mother Nature does it best, and even better when we humans work with her — or at least get out of her way.
The above “musts” were derived from this post on the Ecological Consciousness page on Facebook, accompanying the tree meme. The following list of resources, I copied directly from the post:
• Supporting the Soil Carbon Sponge – Walter Jehne (EcoFarming Daily)
• Wildfires are Getting Worse – Time to Rehydrate Our Landscapes (commondreams)
• The Rights of Indigenous People are Key to Saving Global Ecosystems
• Kiss the Ground – Regenerative Farming & Soil Carbon Capture Solutions (Netflix film)
• Regenerating the Earth and her people
• Regenerative agriculture: effective responses to climate change (medium.com)
• Put Carbon Back Where it Belongs – in the Soil
• Want to double world food production? Return the land to small farmers! (theecologist.org)